Gillian Saga IV - The Date
by monica.prelooker
Summary: Much to Hotch's and Gillian's dispair, Matt Cruz sends his new recruit to work one case with the BAU, right when Valentine's Day is around the corner and Beth has something special in store for Hotch.
1. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Teaser 1-4

_"__Something always brings me back to you_

_It never takes too long_

_No matter what I say or do_

_I'll still feel you here till the moment I'm gone."_

The team strolls from the staff kitchen to Reid's desk. Hotch's arrived just a few minutes ago, so they still have a little while before the briefing. Garcia is telling them that this year she's letting Valentine's night entirely up to Sam's imagination.

"I want him to surprise me," she says, and turns to Jennifer. "What about you? Did you already booked a babysitter?"

"Yeah, I have a babysitter, and we have our reservations."

"I have plans too," Reid says, and he instantly becomes the center of attention.

He lets them harass him for a moment with a mysterious smirk, then he pats a pile of manuals on his desk. Morgan takes a look at them and frowns.

"Sexual Sadists? Classic Narcissists? These are trainees manuals, you even wrote a couple of them!"

Reid nods at the office's door. The other three glance back and see Section Chief Cruz opening it to let Gillian in. Cruz smiles at them saying to Gillian: "There you have them. I'll be right back."

A moment later she's in Morgan's arms with a bright happy grin. Then she falls into Garcia's hug. "LT!"

"Penelope my girl!"

"It's not LT anymore, Penelope," Jennifer seriously notes. "Now it's _agent_ Gillian."

"But she will always be LT for me."

Reid is still leaning back in his chair and pats the manuals again. Gillian turns to him, sees the amount of material and her shoulders bend, burdened.

"Wait," Morgan frowns. "These are for you?"

Gillian nods sighing. "Yeah, I don't know what the hell for. Cruz wants me to read them, along with the papers for the crash course I'm taking. My brain is about to collapse…" she glances at Jennifer pointing at the manuals. "Warn Will he better doesn't fall short on Valentine's plans, cos I have enough to sit Henry for a year."

Jennifer smiles at Garcia's questioning frowns. "Reg is babysitting Henry for Valentine's."

"Actually," points Reid. "Henry, Reg and I have plans for a wild night of movies and carbos in my place."

"And when Henry goes to bed, I'm getting some top quality tutoring from our good doctor," Gillian completes.

"Shut the door! That's your plan for Valentine's? You're letting me down, Reg!"

"Well, sugar, Cruz keeps me stuck here, so no dinner with candles with this hot Homicides detective back home."

"You're still seeing Russell?" Jennifer asks.

"Nope. I'm talking about sweet green Taylor, my old partner's new partner."

"Oh, LT, you gotta tell me about him!"

"Every dirty detail, Penelope, as soon as we have a chance."

Jennifer turns mother-mode on. "Just tell me he's at least 30."

Gillian holds up her eyes, not the hint of a smile, and they all laugh. Their voices lure Rossi out from his office, and he joins him with a big smile at seeing Gillian there.


	2. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Teaser 2-4

From Hotch's office, Cruz and Hotch watch Rossi hugging Gillian.

She's been in the bureau for six months now, and she's already in everybody's mouth. While bouncing between Boston and DC for courses, seminars and standard training, her team's discovered and neutralized in a few weeks three domestic terrorists cells when nobody knew they even existed. That got Cruz and Cooper, the Boston's field office chief, a commendation, and spared the TPU most of the dull basic training for new recruits —better keep them working.

Hotch's been following her steps from afar, and he's not surprised at the brass being pleased with her, nor at learning that uptight always-pissed SSA Cooper has adopted Gillian and the TPU as her official favorites —rumor has it Gillian is the only human on earth allowed to call her "Alice", cos not even her husband calls her that. And Cruz simply loves her. Hotch thinks he himself is about to get a commendation only for telling Cruz about her. Well, a rise would come in handy, better than another commendation to hang from the wall —if there's a single gap left for one more.

Hotch's been watching Gillian deploy her annoying smartass magic all around, and he's giving her that she knows how to make it work. All in all, she seems to generate a field force against which rules crash, bend and slip way. And everybody cheers for her every time it happens.

But she pays back with full hands. She's still the workaholic, driven woman Hotch met last year in Boston, only now she pours all of her endless energy for the bureau's cause. She's devoted all of her loyalty, her brilliant intelligence and her sharp instincts to her new post. And that's why she's out there wearing jeans, and calling her boss by her first name, and walking up and down Quantico with top ranked agents.

However, it's odd seeing her here, cos she's been staying carefully away from the BAU offices in her almost weekly visits to DC. She meets with Hotch's team every single time, but never there. The 6th floor is like a black hole to another dimension in her Quantico's schematics. Like those buildings skipping from the 12th to the 14th floor for superstition's sake.

And Hotch is absolutely fine with that. Even almost grateful. He gets his doses of Gillian's wits now and then, thanks to Cruz. He doesn't need her in his line of sight.

"You were so right about her," Cruz says now, pride and joy in every word. "She'll be head of the field office next year —and then I'll have to deal with all of our Boston's agents showing up to work in jeans, and the whole office papered in rock posters."

Well, that's Gillian for you, Chief.

"How's she dealing with all the regulations and the crash courses?"

"Best score at everything."

Yes, that's Gillian for you, too. And as far as Hotch knows, Cruz is being lovingly ruthless with her, dragging her to simultaneous seminars and courses one after the other, no break whatsoever. She's keeping up, because rumor also has it she's very fond of Cruz as well, so she's bearing not only because she _has_ to be the first and the best at everything she does, but also not to let him down. And whether he likes it or not, to pay Hotch back for bringing her to the bureau. Yet she must be hating it, being imprisoned in classrooms and conferences, instead of being out there in the field, where she belongs.

Hotch notices Cruz' slight smirk, as he's still watching Gillian, and asks: "What did she do."

"Nothing…" Cruz shrugs. "The other day, after a CT seminar, she… Well, she had a word with agent Todd."

"Jordan Todd?" The one who tried to fill in Jennifer's shoes during her maternity leave, and not only couldn't she be up to Jennifer's soles, but also quit ahead of time and ran away?

"Yeah… It's no secret that Gillian knows you guys, and Todd said something about you being sort of… cold about your cases. Gillian didn't take it well."

Hotch nods, inviting him to elaborate. Yes, he's known Gillian is fiercely defensive of the BAU team before anyone who as much as insinuates a mild critic to hem.

Cruz shrugs again. "Gillian told Todd she should better stick to worry about her looks, because she obviously doesn't have wits for anything else."

Hotch scoffs. It could've been worse, knowing Gillian's quick tongue. But he couldn't have said it better either.

Cruz turns his proud-boss mode off to talk business. "Look, actually I'm here because I'm needing somebody for a parole review. I was thinking Rossi…"

He hands Hotch a folder, he flicks through it cursing the bad timing. Budget constant cuts wouldn't allow him to complete the team, even when it's been about a year since Blake left. And now Cruz is taking one of them away for a couple of days.

"Can't this wait for a few days? I was about to brief the team about a case…"

"I'm afraid not. They need it for tomorrow."

Something very deep inside Hotch bitterly points that Cruz wouldn't say no like that to Gillian. Which pushes Hotch's eyes up and out the inner window again. She's resting against a shelf behind Reid, both her hands on the not-a-boy-anymore's shoulders, as they keep chatting and laughing.

Hotch takes a heartbeat for a quick check. It's been six months. She's smart. And he can trust she will keep her usual two arms' length distance with him at all time.


	3. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Teaser 3-4

Hotch and Cruz exit Hotch's office in different directions. Hotch strides to the conference room saying: "Dave, Chief Cruz has something for you. Everybody else, we have a case."

The team lazily heads to the conference room as Cruz joins Rossi, giving him the folder. "Rossi, I need you to do a psych eval of this man. They're expecting you."

"Let's see…"

Rossi flicks through the file while Gillian struggles to lift the pile of manuals Reid's got for her without dropping any of them.

"Is that all?" Cruz asks.

"Yes, I'm starting off as soon as I get to my hotel."

Cruz spots Hotch showing at the conference room's door and scowling down at Gillian. He smirks. "Or maybe not…"

Hotch lashes in his impatient way: "Gillian, we're waiting for you."

She looks up at Cruz in a complete puzzle. Cruz smiles. "I'm leaving them with one man down, so you're the replacement. For this one case."

Rossi winks at her. "Go get'em, kiddo."

Et tu, Brutus!

Gillian drops the manuals still gawking at them. There's no chance to throat Cruz and make it out of the building alive. And there's no time to explain even one of the thousand reasons why she rather dies than joining the BAU, even for one single case.

She heads to the conference room getting a first-hand flash of how prisoners feel on the death row. She knows she's going to like it, there's no doubt about it, because she's seen them at work from a close range and she's always dreamed of doing it up close, be an actual part of it. But she doesn't want to spend that much time around Hotch. She doesn't want to spend any time at all around him.

She's very aware of how big she owes him, for getting her into the bureau through the big golden gates after she quit Boston PD. Not many people show up for their first day at the FBI with SSA Aaron Hotchner's endorsement as their cover letter. And she's been wearing her ass out to pay him back in the way she knows he appreciates: hard work. She's been putting up with all the shit and rules and stupid fed clichés, swallowing all of them up, only for his sake.

But please, don't make her share a room, a plane, a vehicle with him. Please don't.

She'd rather be Todd's slave for a year and clean her toilet than working with Hotch. And that reminds her of the Todd-episode two days ago. She knows she's snapped way out of place with a senior officer. But they were just out of an elevator booth that stank to Hotch's cologne —actually there was more of a very slight hint lingering in the air, he must've just used that booth to go to up to his office, but even that was too much of it for Gillian. It wasn't the first time it happened, damned obsolete air-renovation system, and every damned time it was like having him standing right by her. And then stupid Todd said that about Hotch being cold, when Gillian was still fighting back a very unwelcome swell of memories from a rest-room, and she's just lost it. Good thing Cruz likes her and overlooked the sanction she'd rightfully earned.

And now this. Working with Hotch a whole case. Two days at least, if not longer —God forbid. She's going to write to Dante to inform him there's a whole circle of hell he forgot to mention, and that she's about to tread into to it.


	4. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Teaser 4-4

There are dreams when you try to run and you just can't advance a single yard. Well, this is exactly the other way around. Three steps to the stairs, five steps to the conference room. Gillian's hardly moved her feet and she's already at the door. Shit. Garcia standing by the screen full of pictures from two victims, Hotch consistently staring down at his tablet with an annoyed scowl at the delay, the rest of the team flashing welcome smiles at her.

Morgan pulls a chair by his side for her and Gillian sneaks to it at the speed of light. Not even glancing at her, Hotch nods at Garcia to start.

"Two weeks ago, San Diego PD found the body of Christie Reynolds, 27, dumped in a park. She was reported missing a week earlier, and she'd been beaten to death. Then last night, Rose Coolridge was found. She was 28, reported missing a week ago, also beaten to death."

Garcia sits down, carefully back to the screen, as the team browses their tablets. Sitting by Gillian's other side, Jennifer shares hers with Gillian.

"He's keeping them for a week, with another week of cooling-off period," Morgan sums up.

"And we know what he does to them during that week: both of them were sexually abused and have traces of torture," Jennifer says.

"So we know he's a sadist," Morgan points.

Reid comments: "Both of the victims were low risk. The first one worked at a department store and the second one was a secretary."

"When were they last seen?"

Garcia quickly answers Morgan: "Leaving their jobs like every day."

"So he's using some kind of ruse to approach them."

"And he's already looking for his next victim. We have a long flight. Wheels up in thirty." Hotch stands up an leaves.

"You ok, Reg?"

Gillian turns to Jennifer frowning. "Yeah, why?"

"You didn't say a single word," Morgan smiles.

"Hey, I know when to shut up and pay attention!"

Morgan scoffs. "C'mon, I'll take you to your hotel to pick your go-bag."

"Good luck!" Garcia says. "And take care of LT!"

Gillian follows them out of the room cursing heaven and hell. Shit, she's gonna love this. She's already loving it. Just watching them sit there and talk a few things about the case got her mesmerized.

It's just so damned great, how they use forensics to deduce behavioral patrons, and then use that to profile the offender and get ahead of him and catch him. Oh God. Why isn't there a profilers' unit she can actually join —one without Hotch in it.

Nowhere.

Because Hotch is one of the reasons why this unit is so frigging good. Shit.


	5. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act One 1-5

Act one

_"__Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires" — William Shakespeare._

On the jet, they sit all together but Hotch, and Gillian takes care to take the seat by the window, with Morgan at her side. That should help her to feel not so exposed. Half way to the West Coast, Hotch joins them and Jennifer calls Garcia over the computer. Gillian knows it's time to talk business and deplores not daring to pick pen and paper to take notes, but gets ready to pay a whole hell of attention.

Everybody pulls tablets and files, Hotch rests by their side. "Ok, let's go over victimology. Both victims left their jobs and never made it back home, so the unsub is abducting them on the street."

"Their cars are missing as well," Jennifer notes.

"So the unsub abducted them in their own cars," Morgan says.

"Maybe he forced his way into their cars with a gun or a knife," Jennifer suggests.

"Or maybe they knew him," Reid adds.

Garcia brings facts to the table. "I still can't find any overlap between their contacts. The victims didn't know each other and they've never been to the same place.

Morgan raises his eyebrows. "Well, they sure share a type: same age, both brunette, middle class workers, single, living alone."

"Neither of the victims present defensive wounds," Hotch points. "So he subdues them before they can try to resist."

"He's in good shape. Both bodies were found in secluded places, so he had to carry them on foot," Jennifer adds.

"When did they last used their credit cards?" Reid asks Garcia.

"The same day they were abducted, after leaving their works. Christie Reynolds stopped at a drugstore on her way home, Rose Coolridge picked up her laundry."

They pause, still studying the pictures and the reports.

Something catches Gillian's attention from the autopsies schematics. She looks up and around to make sure she's not interrupting, then she says: "Both victims present almost exactly the same patron of wounds from the torture…"

Morgan doesn't quite agree: "That's hard to say, in the state they were found."

It's Morgan, so she can argue: "Tell me, if you get into a fight, and you have your opponent subdued, and you are really mad, where do you hit?"

It's Hotch who answers: "Basically wherever you can, but mostly in the face, why?"

Ok, the test is officially started. Gillian makes a solemn vow not to let Hotch intimidate her too much, looks up at him and says: "In the face, like these victims," now she looks down at the others, really expecting them to get her point. "But the rest of the bruising isn't consistent with fist blows. Look at their arms, their necks, their legs…"

They do look and Reid frowns. "They make sense if the unsub was grabbing them, not hitting them… And he did the same to both victims."

Beat, then Jennifer words the conclusion: "He's playing out a fantasy."

"And they're surrogates for the real object of his sadist fantasy. So he will escalate until he builds up the courage to confront her, or until we catch him."

Gillian would kiss them and hug them and ask them for their autographs, but something doesn't quite fit between what they're saying and what few she knows.

"Time out, ignorant on board" she requests. "A sadist is some sick dude who gets off on inflicting pain, right?"

"It's not that simple, but yes, you may put it that way," Hotch nods, decided not to let Gillian's wording get to him.

Jennifer glances up at her. "You don't think he's a sadist?"

Jeez, it's hard to make your point when you don't know the words, and with Hotch's scowl fixed on you. But Gillian tries anyway. "I picture a sadist smiling as he tortures somebody. But this guy is not smiling in my head. The way he's beating them? This man is crazy furious."

One thing she loves about them is how they never cast an opinion apart just because you don't have their credentials and eons of experience.

Reid picks on it right away. "You mean the bruises and the beatings are not part of his fantasy, but a consequence of it…?"

"He wants them to follow his script, and when they don't, he gets violent, to the extreme of killing them," Morgan says.

Warm, but not hot. "I little of both?" Gillian tries. "Maybe he also likes to play a little rough?"

The one who hits hot is, and there goes the irony of Gillian's year, Hotch, who says exactly what she means: "He wants to physically impose himself to them, but at some point they don't fulfill his needs and then he snaps and kills them."

She flashes a very honest smile up at him. "Exactly, thanks."

He nods, agreeing, and shoots his instructions. "Reid, see what the Coroner can tell you. JJ, you and Morgan go to Christie Reynolds' house. Gillian and I are going to the station to set up shop."

Like hell we are. "Can I see the house of the last victim? I'm cop core, I'm better at forensics than at speculation." And go refute that.

Hotch doesn't even blink. "Garcia, send me Coolridge's address," and clarifies, like he needs to: "I'm going with Gillian."


	6. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act One 2-5

And there they go, the two of them alone in one of the SUVs, straight from the airport right off the jet. Without trading a single word or even a glance in the whole way.

Hotch can sense how she's like a very pissed porcupine at his right, but she needs to get used to having him around while they work this case. He too, but Gillian's attitude allows him to relax into his cold professional pose, and appreciate that she's grown her usual two arms' length distance to four, maybe even five arms' length. Which is perfect as for now.

As soon as they get to the victim's house, he will turn her cop-mode on, push her on the trail, and she will stop sulking to deploy all of her police experience on the case's behalf. And then the job will keep both of them busy enough to mind about loathing each other's guts.

Hotch pulls over by the curb and Gillian launches herself off the SUV almost before he kills the engine.

A young, good-looking guy in his early thirties comes to meet them, already stretching out his right hand. "Hi, I'm detective Wilson, thanks for coming so soon," he welcomes them as they shake hands.

"Nice to meet you. I'm agent Hotchner, this is agent Gillian," Hotch politely replies.

As Wilson leads them to the front door, Hotch notices he's not talking to them both, but rather to Gillian. "We've searched the house this morning, when we identified the body. There are no forced entries. That, and her missing car, suggest that she was abducted on the street."

Gillian only nods with the hint of a smile, still too moody to pay him any real attention, so Hotch says: "Yes, we agree. We want to see the house to get a better idea about the victim."

Wilson opens the front door and smiles at Gillian —again, in only ten yards, inviting her in. Now she smiles back with a quick nod.

Already inside the house, they take a moment to wear latex gloves. Wilson stays back, waving at the room. "Take all the time you need. I'll be right here in case you need me."

"Thanks, detective. Gillian, tell me what you see."

Gillian glances at him, Irish poisoned daggers in her blue eyes. Hotch holds up her eyes with his best blank face —you're not here only for the nice ride. Gillian sighs and starts looking around.

She needs to get in the game. Ignore Hotch's frosty scowl and Wilson's hot smile behind her. This is police work, and she's more than able to do it. So.

"Too neat for somebody that works full day, she had a cleaning lady. We should interview her."

Her voice is rather dry, matter-of-fatcly describing what she sees. The family pictures are on the mantelpiece over the false chimney.

"Two married sisters, she only saw them for the Holidays, they can't tell us anything about her daily routine. Dad left or die when she was a teen and she blamed her mother for that: there are no pictures of her."

She goes to the kitchen, hearing Hotch's steps behind her, but she's in her turf here, so he's no longer a distraction. She checks the drawers.

"She was living here with a man. She's removed almost anything that could remind her of him, so she was probably dumped and resented him for that."

Cupboards. "Way more glasses than dishes or mugs. She didn't like living alone and always invited friends over for late get-togethers. She was feeling lonely but tried to pose as just being social."

Gillian turns around and faces Hotch raising her eyebrows —do I get a cookie now?

Hotch slightly nods and heads back to the family-room. Digesting. That was not just police eyes, and she was not showing off. Gillian's just read the ground floor like any of them, only out of her sharp instinct and her skill to connect dots. That's the problem with her. She's so annoying that she makes him forget how intelligent she actually is. He brought her here to "turn her cop-mode on", and he forgot only ten minutes and two of Wilson's hits on her later.

Gillian passes by heading to the stairs, and as he follows, he spots Wilson openly checking her butt. Good for them. As long as they keep it to non-working time, they can marry and live happily ever after, for all Hotch cares.

He finds Gillian in the master bedroom's bathroom. She's leaning forward to slide a finger along the tube, then she smells it.

"She came here before disappearing," she says.

That's some wild guess, so he asks: "Why would you say that?"

She points around. "She took a bath with aromatic oils, ironed her hair, left her makeup out here. She was in a hurry not to be late."

Ok, not a wild guess at all. Again. Hotch's phone rings. Beth?


	7. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act One 3-5

"Sorry, I need to take this," he mutters, leaving the room.

He hears Gillian on the phone as soon as he's gone, but he turns his attention to his own phone.

He's texted Beth that he's on a case, what can be so urgent to call him to work? Their reservations for Valentine's Day. Great. A week from today. Oh, two days from today? Anyway. He can tell she's upset, but he's working, they can talk about this later.

He hangs up flustered. This is growing more and more into the worst of Haley's reprise. At least with Haley, the ranting was about not being home with her and Jack. But here the not-yet-but-soon ranting is about not going over to another city, never minding not only his consuming work, but also the fact of his single parenting.

It wasn't like this at the beginning. Of course. Only two years ago, when Beth moved to New York, it was all understanding and smiles and dinners with candles. But now, sometimes Hotch wonders if Beth thinks his day has more hours or his weeks more days than regular people. She doesn't openly complain. Yet. But now she falls into that detached tone he already knows so well —yeah, ok, whatever, call me.

Still sullen about it, Hotch goes back to the master bedroom.

Gillian is lazily checking a drawer, phone to her ear, and he hears her say: "We just lost our window, baby, but I'll give you this: cold champagne."

He scowls and barks: "Is that Garcia, Gillian?" —it better be.

Gillian doesn't even flinch at his harsh words. "I'm putting you on speakers, P."

Garcia's voice comes giggling out of her phone. "No! Glasses?"

"Never."

Hotch thanks Gillian for not facing him with the smartass little smirk that must be pursing her lips right now.

"Garcia, we need the names of Coolridge's cleaning lady and her ex-boyfriend," he orders, because Gillian's observations were right after all.

"At the speed of text, sir."

Garcia disconnects still giggling. Hotch forces himself to sulk for the right reasons, and sees Gillian turning to him with a piece of daring red lingerie. Hotch shoots a warning glare at her, but she says, in her plain tone:

"The unsub didn't hijack Rose in her car: she went on a date with him."

He frowns, she moves the lingerie in her hand —anybody home?

"Dumped woman in her late twenties, no boyfriend and a drawer full of this. She was looking for action."

Yes, of course he's home. "So she knew the unsub."

"I don't think so. My money is on a first date with an online contact. Garcia is already checking it."

Hotch nods dialing his phone, while Gillian closes the drawer and takes a last look around. "Morgan, have Garcia access Christie Reynolds' computer and check her activity online." He hangs up and faces Gillian. "We should go to the station."

They head back down to the ground floor and Hotch knows he's owing her some kind of acknowledgement. "Good work. You figured out the date by looking at her bathroom and the drawers."

Wilson is there like a soldier, and he hears her reply: "C'mon, agent Hotchner. I'm a divorced woman in my forties. I have three drawers like that back home."

Hotch takes mental note to _never_ acknowledge her a damned thing again, notices pretty Wilson's removed his wedding ring from his finger and beats him to open the front door and hold it for her, snarling: "No, Gillian. You worked ten years as a Homicides detective."


	8. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act One 4-5

The way to the police station is as silent and sullen as their way from the airport. Only now they're following Wilson's car, who's politely taking them the shortest way. The sun is setting into the sea, past the bay, and the night is closing over San Diego when they finally arrive to the station.

The others are already there, at the conference room, and both Hotch and Gillian feel the relief of joining them. The victims' pictures are already pinned to the board, along with a map and rough time-line. It's strictly only-business time and they both sincerely welcome it.

Reid goes first. "The DNA found on the bodies is the same, but it's not in any data base. The initial reports didn't include it, but both victims have missing hair."

"You mean the unsub cuts it? He's keeping trophies?" Jennifer asks.

"No, he pulls at their hair so hard, he rips out full flocks."

"What part of their head?" Gillian asks.

"Mostly the back. And both bodies were clean before being dump. There are no traces of any kind of dirt on them, except the soil from the dump site."

"Washing the bodies before dumping them could be a forensic countermeasure," Morgan notes.

"The blood was still in the wounds, he did it before killing them."

"He wanted them clean before killing them," Hotch says. "That could indicate some kind of obsessive disorder."

A ring from the speaker phone and Garcia joins the party.

"Hey, angel face, what do you have?"

"Oh, if I could only tell you… LT was right about the dating sites. Both victims are registered in different web sites, but both of them used to spend at least an hour online every day at those sites, chatting with male users."

"Any overlap?" Jennifer asks.

"No, I found men registered in both sites, but no coincidences between the victims. They were in touch with different users."

Hotch leans a little to the phone. "The unsub wouldn't have the same user in both sites. Did any of the victims concert a date through these sites?"

"Both of them, several each."

"P, look for overlaps in IPs from users in contact with them."

"You _are_ Pillbug's mom, LT."

"This unsub is organized, he would be very careful about details," Reid says. "You should also look for different users, no longer active after concerting the dates."

"Are there any records of the chats?" Morgan looks up at Hotch. "Maybe we can work on a linguistic profile…"

"Yes, I have terabytes of them."

"Garcia, send us only the records of the last users the victims dated."

Gillian dares to add, considering Hotch is bound to have zero experience in online dating: "And check for any exchange of phone numbers between them and male users. Sends us those too."

Jennifer frowns. "You mean women give their phone numbers to men they meet in chats?"

Morgan nods. "They go out on dates with them, why wouldn't they give them their phone numbers.

Garcia has enough to push her magic into warp. "Ok. Champagne. No glasses. I'll send them as soon as I filter them. Anything else?"

All of them frown, until Gillian whispers: "Blindfold."

"Thank you! Garcia out."

They turn to tease Gillian —all but Hotch, who turns to scowl at her, and they find her studying the board. Jeez, there's so much she wishes she knew. You never linger much on motivations in police work, only hard evidence.


	9. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act One 5-5

But she's got the best profilers right there with her, so she asks: "Something made this guy lash out, right?"

Reid goes to her side and says: "We call it stressor: an event that triggered his homicidal behavior."

"It happened before he abducted his first victim, but not long ago. It could be days or a few weeks," Morgan explains.

Jennifer adds: "And since he has a type, we know the stressor was related to a brunette woman in her late twenties or early thirties."

"The same age of the unsub," Reid completes. "So the woman is his ex or current wife or girlfriend."

Once again, Gillian would hug them and kiss them for their patience about her ignorance, but Hotch asks: "Why, Gillian?"

She turns to him, asking instead of answering: "Do you think that if we can figure his routine with these women we can figure the stressor? And if so, would it be of any help to identify the unsub?"

Hotch gives her the textbook answer: "Understanding his routine can help us to prevent him from killing other women."

That was not a real answer —it was a yes-no question, but Gillian nods anyway. She can ask Reid later.

While she's still looking at the pictures, she hears Hotch saying: "Work on that, Gillian. We already have the names of Rose's cleaning lady and ex, so we can interview them first thing tomorrow. Now you guys go the hotel and get some rest."

They pick their things and Gillian wraps her arm around Morgan's, who opens the door for her asking: "Are we having a beer, Reg?"

"You've heard the boss: I have work to do."

"Hotch was meaning tomorrow, not now, you hopeless workaholic."

"Maybe if you drop by later with champagne and a blindfold…" Jennifer teases.

"What? Morgan is too old for Reg," Reid objects.

They leave laughing, Hotch stays behind with a little smile. He likes to see them like that, able to switch it off for a while, even though he knows all of them are going over the case before going to sleep.

Gillian fits in so well with them. She even gets Reid to pick on spicy jokes, which can be considered as a major achievement. She obviously lacks the specific training of a profiler, yet she's nothing of a hold-back for them, and she brings good things to the table, too.

Like it has anything to do with the case, he remembers he's owing Beth a call. Maybe in a while.

Gillian's fixation on the unsub's routine is her sharp instinct talking. There might be something there. But there's no need of looking into it himself. If there is something, she will find it out. All in all, bringing her along is worth his colics. And hers.

END OF ACT ONE


	10. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act Two 1-7

**ACT TWO**

Act two

One thing takes to the other and Hotch lingers in the station until past 9. When he finally makes it to their hotel, he heads for his room, at the end of the corridor, thinking only about calling Beth, taking a good hot shower and a last look at the files, and then going to sleep.

Then he spots one of the doors is slightly ajar and he hears the voices coming out of it.

"No, no, keep pulling her hair and grab her wrist."

Gillian? And that's Morgan, sounding like he's doing some sort of physical effort: "I can't!"

"Let me try," that was Reid.

Hotch knocks on the door and it gets slowly open.

Morgan, Jennifer and Gillian are near the table, where Reid is bending over two pillows stuffed into women clothes.

"See?" Gillian is saying. "A rope would've saved him all this trouble, but he needs to do it all with his own hands."

Jennifer and her are comparing what Reid is doing with a picture in Jennifer's hand, when Morgan looks up and spots Hotch standing there, with a questioning scowl.

"Hotch! Come in, man! We may have something here."

"What are you doing?"

Reid straightens up in a jolt, dropping the stuffed clothes. Gillian heads straight to the furthest end of the room, where she takes a beer from the mini bar and stays there, clearly deploring the mini bar is too small for her to get inside of it.

But the others are actually glad he's here, and they swell their conclusions onto him right away, as Hotch slowly walks into the room, looking around.

"We were going over what the unsub does to his victims," Reid explains. "He's as tall as me, but much fitter."

"We're checking all the marks and bruises on his victims were caused by the unsub subduing them only out of his own physical strength."

"He might be suffering a masculine identity crisis."

Jennifer gets Hotch's attention. That's some speculation to do, with only a few hours in the case.

Morgan starts to unravel it: "We know he picks his victims online, so he's not very socially skilled."

"If Gillian's theory is right, he's skilled enough to convince them to meet him personally," Hotch seriously objects.

Reid shakes his head. "It's easier to pose a confident personality online. So he may know what to say in a chat, but when it comes to interact in person, he's completely unskilled."

Jennifer picks the baton: "He's abducting them because there's no way these women would go in a second date with him. It's his only way to spend time with them." She shows Hotch a picture. "Look at this bruising in the first victim's genitalia. This is rush mixed with lack of sexual experience."

Reid hands him another picture. "On the second victim, he's acquired a little experience, and most of the bruises are from restraining her with his bare hands."

"We're talking about a young man with no sexual experience prior to this, not even paid," Jennifer adds. "We think he was somehow led to believe this is how he's supposed to act with a woman."

Morgan waves at the fallen pillows. "The way he's treating them? The message is always the same: see what a tough man I am."

"But while convinced to be rough and even violent with women, he was being raised insecure and with very little social interaction," Reid goes on.

Hotch nods, taking the file from Jennifer's hands. Of course, it's so clear now, it's like a hand on his shoulder, pushing him. So he dives in to pick where the others left, to add the missing pieces.

"The unsub is getting only the momentary physical relief from the abuses, but no real pleasure. The rage displayed when he kills his victims proves it. He's been emasculated for so long that now he's incapable of feeling a real man, no matter what he does and how violent he gets. Because he just doesn't know how it feels."

He slowly nods again, feeling how the pieces fit in place.

"He's not only acting out a fantasy, but trying to prove himself up to somebody else's expectations. And the victims are not surrogates of a wife or a girlfriend, since he's had none…"

"There's only one person in a man's life that can both emasculate him like this and cause this desperate need of proving himself," Morgan finishes.

"His mother." —so, so clear now, that exquisite moment of understanding. Hotch savors it as Morgan goes on.

"The week between the first kill and the second abduction was not a cooling-off period."

Of course not. Hotch looks up at him. "He used it to hunt his next victim online."

"There's one more thing," Reid says. "Both victims were abducted on Thursday, so we still have three more days to find him."

Hotch gives the file back to Jennifer and looks up at all of them, making sure Gillian notices he's including her. "Good work, everybody. See you in the morning."

He heads out and hears Morgan's steps following. Hotch pauses before his door, right next to Jennifer's, and waits for him.

"Hotch, the whole idea about the unsub's mother…"

He nods. "I know it was Gillian's." And there's another little puzzle that comes to fit as he words it: "She just feels it's not her place to speak while we're profiling an unsub."

Morgan nods with a quick smile, glad to see he gets it. "Don't you wanna join us for a beer?"

"No, it's ok. Just keep it low, I can use some sleep." —and Gillian can use a break from me.

Morgan gives him another quick smile and heads back to Jennifer's room.


	11. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act Two 2-7

Hotch drops everything on his bed sighing. So they're gonna be here at least two more days. He better warns Beth to cancel their reservations, there's no way he can make it to New York in time for Thursday's silly Valentine's dinner.

She's not going to be happy, and Hotch realizes that right now he's not in the mood for an argument. Even if it's not an argument at all. He's not in the mood for Beth's detached answers, and apologizing half a dozen times in a five-minutes call, and go to sleep feeling he's letting her down, and that no matter how many times he promises he'll make it up to her, they both know he's never having the time to actually do it.

So calling Beth falls off the to-do list. On to the next thing: hot shower.

Slightly warm, actually, because it's San Diego, where winter doesn't usually visit.

He lets the water slide down his body with a deep, tired, heartfelt sigh, not even bothering in grabbing the soap yet. He just stays there, eyes closed, simply feeling the relaxing caress of the water acting on him.

His mind slides back to the case in a lazy, absentminded turn. The profile is dead-on right, he can feel it in his guts. And they got it from the unsub's routine.

He can bet his suit that Gillian went back to it as soon as they got to the hotel, and she sure asked the others for help. She's never been afraid of recognizing where she falls short and turn to those who can fill in for her, that's one of her more remarkable virtues: that complete lack of professional pride. So they sure role-played the routine and they came to the now obvious conclusion.

They expressed it in their profilers' jargon, but Hotch could easily track each of Gillian's contributions to it as they were speaking. Yet she ran to barricade herself between the table and the mini bar as soon as he stepped into the room, not uttering a single word while they were exposing him their —her theory.

Recalling the moment, he realizes he registered Gillian's respectful look at them as they were speaking, bordering gawking admiration. Even at him, listening to every single word he said with all of her attention.

Gosh, this woman can be such a good profiler. And being Gillian, he may even talk Cruz into transferring her to the BAU —no, I wouldn't, Cruz would send me packing, but _she_ would, no doubt about it. If she only liked profiling better than terrorism.

The to-do list for tomorrow grows one line longer: showing Gillian she likes profiling over terrorism.

It's going to be a little rough at the beginning, until he learns to deal with her smartass ways and she learns to deal with his own ways. But nothing they cannot manage. It can actually may come in handy for both of them and their… issues about each other. They can overcome them through exposition's overdose. Wouldn't be a first. Constant friction ends up molding the stone. And the others will be just thrilled at having her joining the team.

And the team will be complete at last.

Wait. Will? Okay, would.

He finally remembers soap and stuff, and gets quickly through with it.

Back from the bathroom, he notices there are no more voices coming from Jennifer's room. They called it an early night. Good. Then he hears the steps out in the corridor. Morgan and Gillian teasing each other goodnight. Gillian's steps and the door exactly in front of his, opening and closing.

Hotch stares at his closed door and he can picture it: across the corridor, Gillian kicks her boots away, gets rid of her shirt, grabs another beer —and isn't that the muffled sound of a fridge opening across the corridor? And then she drops herself on the bed, laying flat on her belly as she goes through the file yet once more.

Fine. That's enough. He has his own files to go through. So he wears boxers, a T and gets started.


	12. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act Two 3-7

Hotch works for an hour straight without looking up from the folders covering his bed, until he hears Gillian's door open.

Then he does look up, frowning at his closed door. And he hears her, a muffled rumor, yet clear enough for him to pick her words: "Wilson? Are you up for a-?" She walks away still speaking. Down the corridor: she's going out.

Hotch glances at his watch. 11 pm. So she's calling pretty Wilson for a midnight get-together. Good for them. Actually perfect: they're keeping it for non-working hours.

He goes back to his files.

When did they trade numbers?

On her way out of the station, earlier tonight, of course.

Back to the files.

Gillian must be downstairs in the lobby, waiting for Wilson to pick her up.

_Back to the files, please._

The department store Christie Reynolds worked at is _a quick drink in some near-by bar_ downtown, they should interview her coworkers.

Back. To. The. Files. Hotchner.

And Rose Coolridge was a secretary at _she will flash one of those smiles at him and he'll be done for_ a legal firm, also downtown.

They should look into her contacts to try to _then going to some motel, a cheap, discrete, no-questions-asked motel._

Hotch knows when to call it a day. And this is it. He needs to go to sleep _now_. So he breathes deep and forces himself to methodically order and close every file, take them all to the table and leave them —not drop them, but softly put them, in a neat pile. Then he gets in bed and turns the bedside lamp off.

Which is the worst thing he can do.

In under a second, the dark room melts into the no-questions-asked motel room. And he can clearly see Gillian and Wilson making out, giggling as they strip each other down. They're going to dive together on bed right by him. He's almost expecting to feel his own mattress giving in to their bodies.

So he closes his eyes, pressing them to try to erase those images.

Which turns out to be even worse. Or better, depending on the point of view. But definitely worse for Hotch.

Because now it's not pretty Wilson's hands undoing Gillian's shirt down button by button: they're his own hands. And he senses the fleeting tingling of anticipation in his fingertips when he softly brushes her skin along her collar bone, smelling that very vague scent of herbs she always wears, and he doesn't even know he's ever noticed.

And as he slowly undoes her shirt, she softly pushes him back, so he trips on the edge of the bed and now he's sitting down on it, her chest right before his face. Then she entwines her fingers deep into his hair, as his mouth meets her skin —pale, soft, warm, and slides down. And he forgets about the buttons to softly brush the straps down over her shoulder and pull aside her tank top and her bra, so his lips find her breast, and it's the perfect size for his hand to cup, pulling a husky sigh from her as his tongue teases her nipple, and his other hand rounds her hip to cup her butt over her trade-mark jeans.

The lamp turned roughly on blinds him at first. But not seeing at all is better than what he just had before his eyes. Anything is better than that. And just like Reid said many years ago, back in the pigs farm in Canada: "and by anything I mean _anything_".

He could really use a drink right now. But going to the mini bar means getting up from bed and cross the room, to stand right before the full-length mirror. And he's not willing to face himself aroused. Feeling it is already enough.

He considers closing his eyes again, but it's not a good idea. Neither it is turning the light back off. So he focuses on breathing deep, both hands tightly crossed over his chest, eyes stubbornly fixed on the ceiling, scowling as to bring the whole hotel down out of his glare, and waits for sleep to fall on him like a hammer and knock him out hard.

As if.


	13. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act Two 4-7

It's rough, it's fast, it's clean. And most of all, clear.

This is just sex, there's nothing more to it. Plain stupid vulgar sex. But she needs it.

Gillian forces herself to keep her eyes open at all times, because she knows that if she closes them for longer than a blink, Wilson's face will melt into Hotch's in her mind, and that's exactly what she's here to avoid.

She's back at the hotel hardly past 1 am, and she manages a smile at Wilson as she waves goodbye from the hotel entrance. Then she drags her feet to the elevator, and out of the booth to the end of the corridor.

And sharply stops two steps before her door, spotting the soft glow under Hotch's door.

She freezes right where she stands, for so long that the lights go automatically off along the corridor. And then she stands there in the dark, her eyes captive of that golden line of light beneath his door.

Hotch is still awake, right there behind that door. Sitting on the edge of his bed, maybe even still with his tie on, going back and forth the case's files, looking for anything that can lead them to the unsub's identity.

He's slightly scowling in her mind, those piercing, amazing green eyes going left to right line after line. Reading, looking, seeking.

She could just knock on his door, oh so softly not to wake the others up, and join him. She could sit some cautious steps away from him and just watch him work, maybe even ask a few questions, and listen to his low, calm voice as he answers her. And admire once more that clear, sharp mind of his, and his perfect wording, and how much he _knows_, and how far he _sees_.

But now she knows that at some point her eyes would slide from his eyes to his thin, tight lips, and his words would melt into a meaningless whisper, and she would try something really bold and really stupid, like giving in to the urge to touch his face —slide her fingertips down his cheek, feel his skin once, or something way, way worse: telling him how important he is for her.

And things would get utterly ugly, of course.

That's why she's just been with Wilson, to try to purge this unsettling awareness of Hotch right across the corridor. But you can't wash off your flesh what's so deep beneath it. This stupid thing stirring inside of her, this awful mix of love and admiration and need that she can't find a way to manage.

Gillian doesn't need to deal with it. She doesn't need to _cope_. She's already been there ever since the hostages crisis. A lot. So now she knows, she understands, and most important: she accepts it.

She even accepts how much he doesn't like her. And she can say she's ok with that, to some point. She cannot force it onto him. They're too different. She's not blind, she's not even young, she's learned long ago to be honest with herself and live with it.

She just wishes she could find a way not to _bother_ him. Being able to be around without upsetting him. But something inside of her always screws up before she even notices. He's gotten to her so deep, that she can't help all of her defensive mechanisms from setting off at the bare sight of him. He knows her so well that she needs to be her most stupid self. To prevent him from getting deeper and see all of what she feels about him.

He's already seen most of it back in Boston, during and right after the hostages crisis, which made her throw her badge and twenty years of service and a whole life of wasted devotion at King Gillian's feet.

He's seen this stupid love she can't help feeling for him ever since Woods' case. But common sense says it should've already washed away over these six months of strict no-contact-whatsoever. And Gillian likes to fancy she can fool him into thinking it did wash away. Fancy, nothing more. She doesn't harbor much illusions about it. But maybe…

So if she could only manage it, she may be able to be around without driving him mad. And learn from him, and get stupidly flabbergasted at his bottomless wits, and get stupidly moved at how much he cares about everybody, and goes out of his way to give them what they need, always leaving himself to the bottom of the list, like he doesn't have needs or feelings, or he doesn't get tired, or have doubts, or the need to send everything to hell now and then.

Then she realizes she's taken two wrong steps in the dark corridor and she's actually about to knock on his door. Maybe just for a simple go to sleep, stupid bold caring man, you're not a boy anymore, you know, and we need you fresh and sharp in a few hours.

And she stops right before knocking, and rests her hand flat open against his door, and whispers: "It's late, Hotch, get some rest." Then she spins on her heels and hurries to her room.


	14. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act Two 5-7

Hotch sits sharply up in bed, looking at his door. This late he's earned to allow himself an annoyed "shit". Not only he cannot sleep. Now he's hearing things. Like Gillian's voice murmuring a few steps away.

Then he hears her door getting softly closed, hardly the click of the lock sliding back in place. He drops himself back down on the mattress exhaling. It _was_ her. Maybe she was on the phone or something.

She's come back early. Good. They're starting up early tomorrow.

He rolls to his side, turning his back on the door, on Gillian and on the whole universe. He's going to sleep now. He damned will.

He turns his light off and starts trying to remember who's the worst serial they've caught. By numbers, not by sick creativity. Frank, the Turner brothers —he's not including Foyet or he really won't get any sleep at all… The Fox, the corrupt cops in Texas a year ago…

Shane Wyland —the Appalachian Trail's pedophile, one of the two only unsubs that ever got away from them…

She's right across the corridor, lying in her bed, how far? Five steps? Seven?

The Replicator…

There's no fighting it. It's physical. The silent pull. He knows the feeling. She's there, but now he can choose whether to stay or to go.

Picturing her smartass mocking little smirk if he ever knocks on her door now really helps. How didn't he think about it before?

Not to mention he doesn't know what on earth he would knock on her door for.

He's choosing to stay. Here. Away. That's them: apart. So.

And that sort of decision finally allows him to close his eyes without weird visions, and fall sleep.

What he dreams, if he does dream at all tonight, he doesn't remember in the morning. And it's way more than fine.


	15. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act Two 6-7

God bless Rossi flying over to San Diego, and Hotch going to the airport to pick him up. That allows Gillian to go to the station early next morning with the other three, trade a proper polite smile with Wilson on her way to the conference room, and face the day in a much more relaxed way than she ever dreamed to expect.

While she's fighting the coffee machine, Morgan calls Garcia, greeting her with one of their classics: "Good morning, goddess of all things hot, what do you have for us?"

And Garcia rises the bet, of course, and they finally get into business.

"After going through hours and hours of silly chat, I found what you wanted. There were two different users, one at each dating site, that went offline after Christie Reynolds went missing. Different IPs, like boy wonder said, but same profile picture."

Jennifer is already opening her tablet and she shows them the picture of a blond young man, as she asks: "Were you able to track the IPs?"

"Not yet. But both of them came back to life after Christie Reynolds' death, only they traded sites. So the IP that first browsed Meet your Mate, now started browsing Matched Inc., and the other way around. Different profile picture, but again the same for both sites."

Jennifer now browses the picture of a dark-haired man.

"Tell me they're active again, baby girl."

"Nope. The problem is that this unsub knows his way around, and he has both IPs pinging from proxy to proxy all over the world. So it's gonna take me a while to track them to their original source. But I will do it."

"What about the chat logs?" Reid asks.

"The last dates the victims concerted online are from a whole month ago or so. Then I looked into phone exchanges, as LT suggested. Christie gave hers to the blond guy and Rose gave hers to the brunette. So I'm sending you all the logs I found from these two guys who are actually one."

"You're the best, baby girl."

"I know."

Garcia is just disconnecting when Wilson comes in. "Guys, good news, bad news: we found Reynolds' car, but we may have another missing woman."

They all stand up.

"This missing woman fits the unsub's type?" Jennifer asks.

"Yes. Brunette, late twenties, living alone. She didn't show up at work today, she's not at home and she's not answering her phone. I just sent a cruiser to her house."

"You guys go, I'll stay here working on the linguistic profile," Reid says.

Wilson glances at Gillian. "I'm going to check the car, if anybody needs the ride…"

Jennifer and Morgan conceal a smile and Morgan says: "Reg, you go with detective Wilson, JJ and I are going to the missing woman's house. Reid, call Hotch, he and Rossi can meet Reg at the site on their way from the airport."

They all leave as Reid dials his phone.


	16. Gillian Saga IV - The Date - Act Two 7-7

"I was done in a couple of hours, and you know I can't stand having nothing to do," Rossi is saying, while Hotch drives. "So I just thought of dropping by, and used the flight to read what Garcia gave me on the case. How is it going? Any leads?"

Hotch nods, rather distracted. "We're on something. Masculine identity crisis."

"So he will lash out until he finally confronts the source of his emasculation."

"It may be his mother."

"That's an interesting theory."

"Gillian's."

"So she's doing fine…"

"She's feeling a little out of her turf, but she's handling it." —ask pretty Wilson about it.

Hotch's phone rings. Reid. He hangs up grimacing. "Locals found the first victim's car, but the unsub might have taken another woman. He's accelerating times, we were expecting him to seek out his next victim two days from now."

"But it's Valentine's tomorrow. Nobody wants to spend it alone."

Beth. Damn. He hasn't called her yet.

The CSU agents are finishing to dust and canvas the car when Hotch and Rossi get to the supermarket parking lot. Gillian is on the phone, still wearing latex gloves. She hangs up as they get out of the SUV to join her. Then she flashes a warm smile hi at Rossi and shows them a paper napkin.

"I've found this. It's from a restaurant. Her card doesn't have charges there, so there's a chance this is where the unsub took her."

Strictly business. Five arms' length. The best breakfast. So Hotch asks: "Her GPS?"

"Deleted."

Wilson joins them, coming from the supermarket, and Gillian introduces him to Rossi. She's strictly business with him too. Good. That's what a pro does. And they're pros.

Wilson shakes Rossi's hand saying: "Welcome onboard, agent," and automatically turns to Gillian. "They're looking for the security tapes from two weeks ago."

"We need them sent to our analyst in Quantico asap," she says, not even the hint of a smile.

"You got it. D'you want me to take you to that restaurant now?"

Automatically, Hotch checks his watch. Too early to fraternize —again. The more if the unsub has a new victim.

"Dave, two persons from Coolridge's circle are coming, please interview them with Reid. Detective Wilson, would you please take agent Rossi to the station?"

"Sure, this way, agent Rossi" Wilson quickly agrees, and again, only to Gillian: "See you guys back at the station."

Gillian just nods and turns to go to the SUV. But she finds Rossi's smirk and can't help to scoff.

She's not being paranoid: the control freak is full out this morning.

**END OF ACT TWO**


	17. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Three 1-6

Act three

On their way to the restaurant, both of them with their sunglasses on and avoiding even accidental eye contact like it's a poisonous snake, Gillian decides to try to relax a little. So she rolls down her window and leans back in her seat, looking out.

But control freak's radars detect the word "relax" in Gillian's mind right away, and Hotch asks: "So how is it going this far?"

It's a good, neutral, legitimate question. And it's a good way to start his task of showing her how much she likes profiling.

Gillian keeps her face half-turned to the window to answer: "It's nice. I like the rush."

_Nice_. That's not good. Let's give her room to speak her mind. "But…?"

Always looking out her window, without changing her neutral, distant, almost I-don't-give-a-damn tone, she replies: "I think I'd rather have you saving my ass over and over than scrutinizing my every move like this." Because when you do, I screw up bigger. "I could use a break now and then, you know. To catch my breath back. There, that's our restaurant."

Hotch pulls over by the curb and kills the engine. She's about to open her door when she notices Hotch is not moving. So she turns to him raising her eyebrows —shall we?

Blank face carved in stone, he says: "You go. Catch your breath back."

Gillian is about to smile, but she just steps out of the SUV and heads alone to the restaurant. Three steps away she finally smiles, and swallows a giggle. Stupid man, why do they say he doesn't have a sense of humor?

While Gillian is in the restaurant, Morgan checks in telling this third woman, just like the others, seems to have left home for a date, and she has an address noted for an appointment at 7 pm last night.

Then Reid checks in: a quick first look at the chat logs says the unsub is not only targeting a physical type, but also his ruse targets the victim's mother instinct —which fits perfectly what they've profiled this far. And he's been very careful not to give away any personal information that could help to identify him.

And when Hotch was hardly hanging up, another call comes in: Beth. He breathes deep and takes it. Good news, honey, there's no way I'm making it to New York by tomorrow evening, so bye-bye those reservations at your favorite restaurant.

He's still on the phone with Beth when he sees Gillian coming back. And that's the exact moment Beth chooses to go off script, from detached into openly demanding. She's angrily scolding him when Gillian is right at the SUV's door, so Hotch cuts her abruptly up, whispering once more:

"Yes, I know, I promise I'll make it up to you. Gotta go now. Bye."

And he hangs up on her. Gillian is already sitting by his right. She doesn't say a world, and her face doesn't wear any question or smartass suggestion. She just shows Hotch the CD in her hand and buckles up the seatbelt, eyes straight ahead.


	18. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Three 2-6

On their way back, Hotch is luckily distracted from Beth's foreseen and finally open claim and ranting when the team calls from the station: nothing from the interviews, and Sylvia Jones, the just abducted woman, isn't registered at any dating site.

"But Reid's found a change of vocabulary in one of the female users the unsub was in touch with," Rossi is happy to announce. "And she's one of Sylvia's friends. So we think she allowed Sylvia to browse the site with her user. And she spent about two hours chatting with the unsub, ten days ago."

Jennifer adds: "The place Sylvia Jones had in her calendar for last night is another restaurant. We're waiting for their security tapes."

Morgan says what they're all thinking: "If the unsub's accelerated his times, he may not keep Sylvia for a whole week."

"We'll deliver the profile as soon as we get there," Hotch says.

He disconnects and notices Gillian is turning in her seat to face him and removing her sunglasses to look at him.

"Talk to me about the unsub," she says, very serious.

"What do you want to know?" he asks, rather tentative.

"Everything."

Plain and simple. He knows that tone: she means it. Ok… He's explained this a thousand times to law enforcements all over the country, so he just plays the tape.

"He's what we call an impersonal killer, because the identity of his victims doesn't really matter as long as they fit his type. An impersonal killer is like an addict: he's looking for the ultimate high. The problem is that their first kill is usually their highest rush, so they keep killing, trying to get higher than that, but they will never get that high again. So they get flustered and become obsessed."

"Is that why he abducted another woman so soon?"

Still plain and interested. She's really listening.

"I think so, yes. Right now he can't think of anything else. He's submerged in his own reality, in which his pursue for satisfaction through these killings has become his whole world. He needs new victims to improve his routine and try to get this ultimate high he's desperately trying to achieve."

Gillian nods, completely mesmerized by his way of explaining it, easy, slow, without unnecessary technicalities so she can understand it. Like always. He focuses her, he opens her eyes, he makes her mind _work_. She wants to have him talking to her like this all the way back to DC. By car.

When she doesn't ask further, Hotch glances at her. Her blue eyes are intensely fixed on him with a very slight frown. Absorbing his every word. Actually like she always listens to him, he admits. So he goes on:

"However, this is no text book impersonal killer, because his high doesn't come from the killings but from his routine."

"And last night you said he's not getting any real high…"

Hotch pulls over before the police station, deploring they're already there, just when they're past basic definitions. So he speaks while parking: "Yes. That's another element that accelerates his times, and it will increase the violence he displays."


	19. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Three 3-6

They get out of the SUV and head to the door. As Hotch holds it for her, she walks in saying: "Last night you guys explained me about the stressor. What if there was no isolated stressor? What if the stressor was his whole life?

Hotch follows her frowning. "What are you thinking?"

He's really listening to her, and Gillian takes the chance of talking to him like she would to Morgan or any of the others. He's in full teaching mode, so he won't get too pissed at her ways and her lack of proper words and experience.

They walk together to the conference room as she speaks, oblivious of the world around them: "I'm still going around his mother issue. I picture this big imposing lady barking at her son around the clock, telling him he will never be a real man-"

Hotch opens the conference room door and she's so engaged that she actually walks in backwards, still talking to him: "-so the boy grows up mustering his one-day-I'm-gonna-show-you-bitch, and starts making up his fantasy to prove mom what a real man he is. And he spends _years_ on it, lining out every little detail."

Hotch hates to interrupt her, but he signals her to pause to turn to Jennifer: "JJ, tell detective Wilson to gather his people to deliver the profile." Then he turns back to her. "Go on, Gillian, you were talking about the unsub's fantasy…"

Morgan, Rossi and Reid smile and make themselves at home to watch this. They don't often get to see Hotch teaching, and they're very curious about how —not if Gillian will deliver. She glances back at them, then again at Hotch —ambush!

"Forget about them," Hotch says, meeting her eyes. "Keep going."

It's here, you can feel it, Gillian. Physical. Like that morning at the coffee-shop, when I profiled Palmer for you. Grasp it and don't let go. We're gonna do this the other way around this time. Connect the dots. Profile for me.

Gillian feels the heat lashing her face, but she clings to his eyes breathing deep. It's them, her friends. It's ok. And Hotch… He's making her function, feeding her mind and her guts. And she really wants to do this. And she knows he will show her the way. So she looks away from him, to stay focused, and slowly paces between the board and the table speaking slower than usual, while Hotch stands by the board, hands in his pockets. Open.

"So one good day mom is out of the picture. Death, gone to visit a sister, whatever. And he's finally home alone, free to stage his fantasy. So he's just doing it."

"We're still talking about one isolated stressor…," Hotch seriously points. C'mon, Gillian, you have to see it.

Then she looks up at him flashing a bright smile. "Of course! You're right! His mother suddenly out of the picture!"

"So why isn't he getting any high?"

"Because… Ok, give me a minute on this one…" she looks down for a beat, then back up at him. "Because mom is not here to see what a man he really is?"

Behind her, the team trades discreet smiles. It's pretty basic, yet she has no training at all in this, so it's pure, raw deduction, carefully guided by Hotch, who anyway doesn't cut her any slack. JJ tiptoes back in and join them by the table.

But Gillian doesn't even registers, completely focused on Hotch, who's saying: "Yes. It can also be that he's trying too hard to stick to his fantasy, and there's something in it that just cannot be played out in real life, and that impossibility triggers his rage. Now what do you think about his type?"

"No thanks, not really into this kind of guys- I'm kidding!" she hurries to say at his annoyed look. "Don't scowl at me! His type is the kind of woman that turns him on…"

"As simple as that."

So not as simple. Think, Gillian, think! Ok, you just screwed up. Again. But you can make it up for it. What turns us on? And don't you dare to say blue navy suits and red ties cos you'd be in deep shit.

"What turns us on…"

"Say it properly. No smart jokes, no _we_. You're not talking about yourself."

Fine. That's my punishment for my bigmouth: he just raised the stakes. Be up to it.

"Okay… Erotic markers are defined by what causes pleasure or disgust to children under the age of 3…"

"That's it, go on."

"So the type of woman that attracts a man can be surely found in the women around him when he was a toddler."

"Always?"

Tricky question. She looks up at him and replies, without hesitation: "Yes. Depending on how was his childhood. A happy child grows into a man attracted to women resembling those associated with pleasant memories. Not so happy children will grow into men attracted to women opposite to the ones associated with unhappy memories."

Hotch nods. Perfect. The explanation, the words, even the tone. Now she needs to apply it to the unsub. "And what about this unsub and his emasculating mother?"

Right away: "A mother is the first indicator of love. And no matter what happens as a person grows up, the parent of the opposite gender is always the first parameter of sexual love."

"So…"

Hotch sees the bright spark of realization in her blue eyes. "That's what's not working in his fantasy!"

Her enthusiasm. Hotch wonders if he's ever heard a profiler so _happy_ at profiling.

"Mind your wording," he warns.

"The center of his fantasy is his mother, but she can't play the real part he wants her to…"

"Yes…"

Now she turns to look again straight into his eyes. "So he's not abusing these women for his mother to see. He's abusing them because he cannot abuse her! They're surrogates for _her!_"

"And what would it tell you about the unsub's age?"

Apparent change of flank, this should distract her. But it doesn't. She smiles wider, gloating on realization: "He's got to be younger than the victims, in order to pretend they're his mother!"

If Hotch were Gillian, he would hug her and kiss her. But Hotch is Hotch, so he smiles and nods, master pleased at young grasshopper.

It takes a whole heartbeat for Gillian to fully realize what just happened. And she does mostly because Morgan pats her back smiling.

"Way to go, Reg!"

"They're ready," Jennifer tells Hotch, and turns to smile at Gillian as well.

They head out and Rossi notices Gillian stays behind. "You're not coming?"

"You guys go, I need a valium and a clean shirt: I'm sweating blood."

Hotch frowns. "It wasn't that hard."

Gillian allows herself to smile at him from her very heart. "That's because you weren't facing the scowl of the top profilers' leader."

He scoffs. "C'mon, they're waiting for us."

She walks out rubbing her hands against her jeans and stays aside. And just in case, at the opposite side from Wilson and with her eyes on her friends, not to get the control freak activated again.

And while they speak, she's still trying to come back down from the rush. So this is how it feels. Profiling. And working with Hotch. It's just so frigging perfect! It feels so, so great. Oh God, if she would only dare!


	20. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Three 4-6

The team stands before the police staff like any other time, taking their turns to speak in their calm, secure, professional yet never cold way. And Gillian listens, once more mesmerized at how they bring together all what they've been talking about since yesterday morning, and add so many more details that they didn't even mention.

Hotch opens, as usual: "We're looking for a white male in his mid-twenties, suffering from a masculine identity crisis."

Morgan goes on: "He's finding his victims online, in dating websites, and he gets them to give him their phone number. Then he invites them out on a date and abducts them, keeping them captive for a week before killing them."

Reid picks it: "Based on his linguistic profile, we know that he's not only targeting women of a specific physical type, but also of a certain psychological type: the motherly type."

"We believe the unsub's mother emasculated him all along his childhood and puberty, and this is the key to his pathology," Jennifer explains.

And Rossi adds: "He's suffering from a psychotic break which distorts his perception of reality and his role in it. In this distorted reality, he's desperately trying to restore his self-image as a man."

"In his everyday life, this unsub is a submissive person. Quiet, shy, apologetic. The kind of person you wouldn't normally notice. He keeps to himself, and he doesn't socialize," Hotch says.

"Look for young men raised by single mothers, loners, his neighbors would tell you he's a nice boy, but a little awkward," Rossi explains.

Jennifer recalls: "Remember that he's heavily beating the victims with his own hands. This leaves a trace, so his hands, mostly his knuckles, will be at least scratched."

"Right now he is on a spree and we know he abducted Sylvia Jones last night, so we cannot count on him to keep her alive for a week as he did with his previous victims."

Gillian is fighting not to gawk at all the things she didn't even think about, when her phone buzzes. She checks it: Garcia. She goes back to the conference room, hating to miss the final explanation.

Reid is saying: "What he's doing to these women requires time and space, so he's most likely keeping them in a house, with a garden isolating it from the neighboring houses, or at a secluded location such as a vacant building or warehouse."

"This unsub is full of rage," Hotch warns. "And he likes to display his physical strength, so he will not likely surrender. If cornered, he will kill Sylvia Jones and try to fight his way out."

Morgan emphasizes: "And needless to say time is of the essence to find her alive."

"Thank you," Rossi finishes.


	21. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Three 5-6

When the team goes back to the conference room. Gillian is talking to Garcia on the speaker phone as she watches something on a tablet.

"I will totally try that as soon as I can get my ass outta here," she's saying.

Back in her tech room, Garcia giggles as she keeps working. "You won't regret it, LT. and then you can also-"

"Heads up, P."

"Are my crime fighters back?"

"Yeap." Gillian hands the tablet to Jennifer. "Christie Reynolds' abduction."

All of them browse their tablets as well, and watch the security footage showing the unsub dragging Christie Reynolds unconscious out of her car. Then he shoves her over his shoulder, best cave man style, and walks out of the picture.

"No camera in or out of the parking lot shows in which car he got into," Gillian grunts.

"Garcia, where are we with the IPs?"

"I'm working on it, sir, but I had this footage to check, and I still have the tapes from both restaurants, and-"

"Send me the tapes from the restaurants, I can check them," Reid offers.

Wilson knocks and sticks his head in. "Uniforms found Coolridge's car. Another parking lot."

Hotch scowls at his glance at Gillian —damned eager runt, bed your wife once in a while! Gillian is not even looking his way.

"Reid, I need you working on the logs. JJ, help him, we need to find any kind of comment that might help us. Morgan, you and Gillian check the security tapes. Dave and I are going with detective Wilson." —to give him a cold shower if he keeps going.

Hotch and Rossi leave with Wilson, the others sit at the table as Jennifer teases: "And there goes a disappointed detective…"

"What? Why?" asks Garcia from Quantico.

To their surprise, is Reid who explains: "Detective Wilson was hoping for another ride with Reg, but he got Hotch and Rossi instead."

"Oh, poor LT!"

"Poor detective!" Jennifer chuckles.

Gillian is still floating in her own private paradise of deductions about the unsub, but she kicks herself back into character to snarl: "Killjoys."

"Focus, Reg, focus!" Morgan teases.

Again, Reid locates the right strain: "You're just jealous because now you have competition in being targeted at work."

"Thank you so very much, doctor," Gillian nods.

"Hey, I'm not available anymore!" Morgan reminds them.

"Neither does LT."

_Oh, well, neither does Wilson, with his pale ring mark in his left hand and the ring tinkling in his pants pockets,_ thinks Gillian. But she's not bringing that to the table.

Jennifer is the one getting them back to business. "Penelope, we're gonna need the records of credit card charges from both restaurants, to look for overlaps."

"Send them over, baby girl, we can check them."

"Ok, as soon as I get them. Bye!"

It's Morgan who finds the unsub in the security tapes from Sylvia Jones' date, but he's sitting back to the camera. Reid has better news: he's figured he lives in the suburbs.


	22. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Three 6-6

Meanwhile, Rossi gracefully bestows a little piece of mind on Hotch, who's wearing his blank face and his plain tone, a combination that Rossi usually reads as "none of your business." Which, of course, never stops him, but rather the other way around.

"I thought Cruz was pushing Reg a little too much, expecting her in our bench so soon, in case we're ever granted a new profiler to complete the team."

"I'm not pushing her, Dave. Gillian cuts it: she's a blood hound, and she loves the thrill of the chase."

"So it was actually your idea, bringing her along for this case."

"Yes. They've been choking her with courses and seminars for months now. She needed a break." —and after a six-months vacations, I thought can handle it… her, around.

"Anyway, you're pushing her too hard, Hotch."

Hotch would like to yell at Rossi: Hard!? Didn't you _hear_ her? Didn't you _see_ her? She could've kept going for _hours!_ She has no training at all! Yet she's so quick, so _brilliant_, and it makes her _happy!_

But he calmly replies: "I'm just playing the part she's expecting me to."

And again, he swallows his mind: because you may not know it, Dave, but that was exactly what I was doing. If you could only _feel_ it. The connection. How she demands it from me. How she begs me to feed that mind of hers.

But Rossi is in foster dad role right now, all defensive about his poor helpless little girl. "Didn't look like that back at the station."

Hotch scoffs. "I was just taking it back on her for having me theorizing about impersonal killers for a mile."

Because that's how we work, she and I. I give her the information she needs and she turns it into facts without even knowing it. She added Woods to the list based on what I told her, and he turned out to be the bomber. She got all of the hostages out alive from the coffee shop. She came up with the emasculating mother's theory last night.

Rossi shows a thoughtful little smile. "But she actually enjoyed it. She looked just like a child on a merry-go-round… You two really share a very special sense of humor…"

Hotch glances at him, glad to know he did notice. "Your foster daughter is fine, Dave. And I don't have a sense of humor."

Rossi chuckles.

Nothing new on the car. Another napkin from a different restaurant. The car stinks of man's cologne. Old man's cologne. The unsub's mother may like it. At least Garcia calls with some good news: they've found the unsub's reflection on a glass door and she's enhancing it to run facial recognition.

Right then Wilson's phone rings. He takes the call turning his back to Hotch and Rossi, but they anyway hear him say: "Gillian…" and they trade a questioning frown.

Hotch takes mental note to give Gillian a cold shower too. Instant correction: have Jennifer do it.

Then Wilson says, very serious: "Sure, you instruct them. I'm calling right now."

And as he hangs up and dials, Hotch's phone rings: Jennifer, to tell him Garcia's just identified the unsub. Stephen Trent, 25, living in the area Reid's marked. They have an address, they're meeting him and Rossi on the spot.

**END OF ACT THREE**


	23. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 1-10

Act four

Not twenty minutes later, they're all outside Trent's house, with police cruisers and an ambulance standing by for Sylvia Jones.

Before proceeding, Hotch addresses the locals: "Remember he's holding a woman captive, and he may not turn himself in. We need to be quick and effective."

"You heard'im, guys!" Wilson says. "Let's roll!"

Hotch turns to his team thinking pretty horny Wilson just said what he would've expected from Gillian.

"Morgan, Gillian and Reid, take the back. Dave, JJ, with me."

Nobody answers when Hotch thunders: "STEPHEN TRENT! FBI!", so they break in.

The locals purse their noses as soon as they come in. Yes, it stinks. It's rotten flesh. There's a dead body in here somewhere. A not-recent-at-all dead body. Hotch has them spread apart to check the ground floor.

Coming in from the back door, the stench is a not as strong, but it's anyway very notorious. The group coming in this way grimace and they spread apart.

Rossi and Jennifer take the stairs with a few uniforms.

Morgan points at the basement door. Gillian yanks it open for him and Reid to go in, then she follows.

Jennifer and Rossi clear every room on their way to the master bedroom. They can already tell the source of the stench is in there. And it is. They push the door open to an insane buzz of flies and a squirming crowd of maggots crawling over a woman's dead body.

Rossi shakes his head. "Hello, mom…"

Downstairs, in the large basement, they find a maze of steel shelves overflowing with boxes and old, dusty objects. Morgan, Gillian and Reid spread apart, taking a row each.

Behind them, Hotch and Wilson are coming down and stay checking the area right around the stairs.

Then all of them hear the rumor from the bottom of the room.


	24. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 2-10

Morgan, Reid and Gillian come out of the rows of shelves five yards away from the bottom wall, to find a small iron cage in a corner, and Sylvia Jones stuffed in it, beaten unconscious.

But when they run to her, Trent roars out of the blue and jumps on Morgan. All they get to see of him is that he's huge, and in full berserker rage.

While Reid struggles to open the padlock to the cage, Gillian tries to get a clear shot at Trent as he fights with Morgan. Morgan is putting up a hell of a fight, but the man is 6.4, stuffed in anabolic and completely out of his mind.

Hotch is hurrying to engage as well, right when Trent throws Morgan down and swings a deathly blow at Gillian. She gets to duck, but that split second is enough to blaze Hotch with that freezing burn he hates in his chest, and he materializes between them already punching Trent straight in his nose.

Gillian turns to the cage, knowing Hotch and Morgan together will eventually subdue Trent, and signals Reid to step back as she calls out: "WILSON!" and she shoots the padlock.

Reid and her drag Sylvia out of the cage, while Morgan and Hotch are still trying to overcome Trent and taking their fair share of blows. Wilson comes running to help Reid with Sylvia and they take her away.

Then Gillian looks around, frantically looking for something to wield as a club and help in the fight. And she hears Reid on the radio:

"Reg, scold him! Be his mother! That will freeze him! DO IT NOW!"

And she doesn't even hesitate, thundering the basement: "STEPHEN! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, YOU PATHETIC JOKE OF A MAN!"

Trent freezes for a split second to gawk at her, and that's more than enough for Hotch to knock him down. Morgan jumps to sink a knee in his back and twists his arm behind him.

Once cuffed, they pull him up on his feet and roughly force him to the stairs, as Trent struggles and snarls.

Gillian stays behind, alone in the basement, heavily breathing: there are a few drops of blood on the floor before her, and she knows some of them are Hotch's. She feels the fear still squeezing her throat only by looking down at them, recalling the couple of nasty blows she's just seen Hotch taking.

Damned frigging mental monster. She wishes she could've shot him when he threw Morgan down, the only moment when she had a clear shot. But Hotch appeared before her out of the blue, and she couldn't take the shot, and next thing it was Hotch who Trent was beating, and she-

"You ok, Gillian?"

She looks up in a jolt, finding Hotch a few steps away. She nods. "Yes, you?"

Hotch nods. "I'm fine."

Gillian spots the bruise in his jaw and the dry drops of blood at the tip of his lips. She fights back her urge to clean them up and scold him. Always the same, stupid bold caring man. Quit shielding me. I can take it and you know it damn well. Now you got hurt because of me. Again.

Hotch frowns at her static silence as she keeps looking up at him, and that shakes her back to reality. She holsters her gun and brushes past him to the stairs. Stupid, stupid, stupid man! When will you ever learn that I care?

He watches her go still frowning. Why is she upset? He knows she didn't feel fear at all, at any moment, and yet. He, on the other hand… He needs to quit feeling that his heart stops every time she's in any kind of danger. It's not healthy. At all.


	25. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 3-10

Rossi and Jennifer turn their heavy parent-mode on and send Morgan and Hotch straight to the hotel, saying they should be grateful they're not sending them to the hospital after the EMTs tended to their bruises. And Gillian thinks it was Jennifer's scowl who really got them going, mostly because she never scowls and it took them aback.

Once they're on their way, the rest of them head to the station to pick and box all the files and material from the case. There's no rush, and from the station they go to have dinner.

Wilson calls Gillian, but she politely declines his invitation to a drink. She's drained, she wants to go straight to bed —her bed, alone. And keep an ear on the stupid man across the corridor in case he grunts, complains or as much as sighs.

So she checks on Morgan, and ends up watching a whole movie sprawled in bed by his side, and she bites at her hands not to knock on Hotch's door —Jennifer's already checked on him and she said he's "fine". Like he would ever say otherwise. And she kicks herself into her bed, turns the light off and keeps her eyes tightly shut.

Across the corridor, Hotch hears her saying goodnight to Morgan and her steps heading to her room. For a heartbeat he almost expects to hear a soft knock on his door, maybe just a quick pause to check on him. Instead, he hears her walking into her room and closing her door.

The fleeting shade of a smile purses his lips. At least she's safe. Hotheaded woman, she was so ready to face Trent, to give Morgan time to get back on his feet. What was she thinking? A shoot wasn't going to stop him. Maybe not even a full clip.

He needs to seriously reconsider if he really wants to push it, about getting her to join the team. She likes it, and she's a natural. With the proper training, she would be formidable. But the perspective of spending most of his nights with her next room, or across the corridor like now —not appealing at all. It would inevitably take its toll on him and his ability to do the job. At least until he gets used to it.

He lies very still in the dark for a while, a few minutes, a couple of hours, he can't tell. The pain killers are working. He's head is an odd blank, as he waits to hear her coming out of her room, and head downstairs to meet Wilson one last time.

But she doesn't go out tonight, and he slowly slides into a deep sleep.

She sleeps too, tonight. Hugging a pillow to forget she'd like to be sitting near Hotch's bed, making sure he's sleeping and not too sore.


	26. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 4-10

Next morning, on board the jet, the team relaxes each in their own fashion.

Gillian pours herself a coffee and pauses by Jennifer. "At 6 pm today, JJ?"

"I can take Henry to Spence's, Reg, you don't need to pick him up."

"Girl, you gotta prep for tonight. In case you can ever get any prettier than you already are," Gillian seriously replies, mother-mode on.

"Then at 6 pm. You know? Henry's really excited about this night out with you two."

Gillian winks at her. "It'll be a night to remember."

Then she goes on to where Hotch is sitting alone, checking some files for a change. She's been going around this in her mind since she went back from the restaurant to the SUV, yesterday morning, and she thinks she's mustered enough courage to do it.

Hotch looks up at her with a quick smile, she nods at the empty seat in front of him.

"Can I?"

"Sure." He studies her as she sits down. "So, Gillian? What's the smart quote about the case?" Permission to speak freely, soldier.

She smirks. "Swear to God I'm never scolding Connor again. _Ever_."

That's less smartass than he expected. And not at all why she's come to sit here. So he waits for her to speak up. And she does so a bit hesitating, knowing she's trading on thin ice.

"Agent Hotchner… yesterday I couldn't help overhearing a few words and…"

Hotch leans back in his seat, defensive 101. But he doesn't punch her lights out, which is good, so she goes on: "Look, I'm babysitting Reid and Henry tonight, so I can very well sit your son too, if you want…"

Hotch frowns, 300% taken aback by her words. She flashes a shy smirk.

"I just thought the more, the merrier, that's all. In case you make up your mind, just let me know what time you want me to pick him up. It's Jack, right?"

Hotch notices he's openly scowling at Gillian, out of pure surprise, and manages it to nod and say: "Okay… Thanks…"

She stands up with a tight smile and hurries to go sit with Reid.

Hotch watches her for a moment and then forces his eyes back to the file he was flicking through. But he doesn't read a single word, still trying to really take in what just happened. Not even Rossi offered this, since he has his own Valentine's plans as everybody else. Just like Jennifer, Haley's sister, who tries from time to time to have something of a life, and called him a while ago to remind him she can't stay with Jack tonight.

And then, out of the blue, Gillian volunteers to sit Jack so he can go out on a Valentine's date. _Gillian_. Of all people.

He knows it will take him a while to process it, and in the meantime he can very well call Beth. Maybe she can come over to DC and they can really go out on a Valentine's date as she so wanted to.

Morgan whines that he needs some cuddling in the crappy state he's still in, and Gillian goes to sit with him, rounding his shoulders with her arm. So Morgan puts his earphones on, rests against her side, and closes his eyes smiling.

Gillian's eyes turn to the window by Morgan, and she blankly stares at the flocks of clouds and the patches of land out there, feeling how her friend is peacefully drowsing by her side.

She doesn't want to think of what she just did. He's going to hate her guts till Kingdom comes for poking into his life like this. Whatever. She was meaning well. And if he can't or won't see it, that's beyond her reach. To hell with him.

Then she smells it. Even with Morgan's always exquisite perfume so close to her nose, she smells Hotch's cologne. She turns to look and yes, there he is. He crouches down by her and speaks in a whisper, not to wake Morgan up.

"Do you think you can come over to my place to stay with Jack?"

Okay. Miracles do happen. Yet: "You mean me and the whole gang?"

"Yes, if that's ok with you guys."

"Only one condition."

Defensive frown, actually more of a warning. "What."

She can help a smile. Be happy for a while, stupid Hotchner. Have a good time. Forget about the world for one single night. We can keep spinning for a few hours without you.

"You're not coming back home before breakfast."

To Gillian's surprise, he smiles back. "I think I can do that."

Now go, or I'm gonna frigging hug you. For real this time.

But he lingers there, holding up her eyes with that little smile, and nods. "Thanks, Gillian. Didn't expect it from you."

Okay, that's it. Go or I'm kissing you off the plane.

And she knows how to push him away with 100% effectiveness. She flashes a smartass smirk at him and raises her eyebrows. "Your bad, agent Hotchner."

And it works, of course. He straightens up and goes back to his seat. Smiling, though.


	27. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 5-10

Henry and Jack are properly watching TV with Reid, while Gillian nods again and again as Hotch goes over his endless list of warnings, advices and requests for the fifth time. Finally she gets sick and tired of it, grabs his keys, forces them in his hand and pushes him out the front door, reminding him he's not allowed back until breakfast.

As soon as she closes the door leaving him out of the apartment, Hotch hears the kids hooraying out loud, and Gillian yelling something like: "Who's up for a nasty burger with tons of fries!", and the kids hooraying again.

He sighs and heads to the door, his watch telling him he better hurry or he'll be late.

At his apartment, they have a really nasty dinner of trash food, play cop-and-robbers all over the family-room and then sprawl on the floor with all the pillows and cushions they can gather, to watch Finding Nemo. Gillian takes a moment to text both Jennifer and Hotch that their children are ok, don't worry, enjoy and if they dare to call or text they'll die a low painful death. It works. Both of them answer a brief "ok" and don't give further signs of life.

Henry falls asleep in Reid's arms way before the movie ends, and Reid carefully takes him to Jack's bed. Jack lasts to the very end, and then Hotchner-seriously states he's had a really good time and now he's going to bed —to his dad's bed, of course, since Henry in his bed and all that.

Once the kids are gone to bed, Reid fixes coffee for them both while Gillian turns into an F5 tornado and cleans up everything as to beat a record. And then they sit at the couches with the thousand manuals she has to read, and Reid picks a couple of them, and gives her the best crash course Gillian's ever had.


	28. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 6-10

**_"__I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness" — Franz Kafka_**

_And I really can't go on like this, I'm tired of you being more of a nominal figure in my life than an actual part of it. The most now, when my biological clock is ticking so loud, telling me I better hurry to start a family of my own because time is really running out._

_But how can I even begin to think about it, when I'm lucky to see you once every three or four weeks, if mister serial killer of the week is kind enough to give you a break, and if you don't have to couch Jack, or any other commitment related to him. And only then you guys would come over, and then I have to start praying for your phone not to ring at least for a few hours, because if-_

Beth's two-hours non-stop ranting vanishes into the barrel of a 19 Glock aiming straight between his eyes when he's about to step into his own apartment.

Hotch freezes, controlling the jolt. Gillian steps back and lowers her gun, scowling at him as she angrily hisses: "Jeez! I almost shoot you! What the hell are you doing here?"

"I live here…?"

She steps back and he steps in and drops his keys, feeling drained to the bones. Gillian's scowl turns into a concerned frown. "She couldn't make it here?"

"Yeah, she did."

"Oh…"

Hotch strolls past her as she grimaces. Shit. When she turns around, he's heading to the couch, so she asks his back: "Coffee?"

And Hotch's back answers: "No, thanks. Everything ok here?"

"Yeah, Henry and Reid are sleeping in Jack's bed, so Jack's sleeping in yours."

Gillian is at a complete loss, trying to push her mind into overdrive to find out what to do or what to say.

Hotch absentmindedly glances at the manual she was reading, underlining and highlighting. "You're reading my papers on mission-oriented killers…"

Scotch. She's seen a bottle somewhere. "Yeah. Comes in very handy for CT."

Hotch drops himself at one end of the couch with a heartfelt sigh, while Gillian launches herself to the cupboards.

"Wanna talk about it?" she asks, just in case. Here it is.

"Not really."

Hotch rubs his face with both hands, and when he looks up, Gillian is holding a glass with a dry scotch right before his eyes. Providential.

"Thanks…," he mutters, taking the glass.

"Anytime."

Gillian goes to her end of the couch and hurries to pile her manuals and papers and stuff into some order on the coffee table, then she sits there and waits, just watching him, feeling at a complete loss again.

Hotch is looking vaguely ahead, sipping at his scotch, and he lets the silence pool. And it feels just fine. Coming home from his worst dinner in years, at least to find his son safe and sound and sleeping as he should, and this scotch so diligently fixed for him, and no questions asked further than strictly necessary. And now this silence.

Leaving aside the gun to his head, it's the first time in a long, long time he feels any kind of welcome back home by someone other than Jack. It's been so many years living this absurd contradiction, of being the hero saving lives out there, but the always absent father, absent husband, absent lover at home.

Now he's feeling Gillian's eyes on him. Those piercing blue eyes. She's not observing him, she's just… looking at him. Maybe trying to find something to say, he hopes, else she will end up picking her things and leaving. And he doesn't want her to leave.

Let out that omnipresent pull between them, he's somehow glad it's her, there, now. And he can't help to bitterly think that he should've stayed home tonight, with all of them, and eat carbos and play with the kids, and help her through those papers with Reid. It would've been a hell of a better way to spend the evening.

Only he didn't.


	29. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 7-10

Gillian is trying hard not to let his sadness get to her too much, because it's adding up to her impotence at seeing him like this and it's just killing her. She knows that she has to make up her mind: she speaks —and pisses him off, sure as hell, or she leaves.

"You know? You and I should apply Derek's formula…," she says, keeping her voice down. "Find some crazy workaholic next door to live happily ever after with…"

That's Gillian, bridging over to him. But they're not talking about it, pathetic pair of workaholic loners, not even living in the same city. Hotch holds it right there. If there's a loner, it's him, not her. And now he remembers two days ago, at the victim's house, while he was on the phone with Beth, he heard her tell Garcia about her current lover.

So he asks, to change the subject, to keep her talking, to get a little distracted from Beth's accusations melting with Haley's in his head: "And what about your young detective, the hollywood-kisser eye-candy?"

He sounds so weary that she cannot quite jump into character. "Don't tell me you heard that."

"I did. What about him?"

She frowns. Don't make me talk to you about other men. "You don't want me talking about that. Or about anything else."

"I could use a little distraction…"

Oh, Gosh, she cannot be her smartass self he hates when she's dying to hold him and try to give him what little comfort she can.

And before realizing, she's blurting out the plain truth: "He's just the shirt of the month. Younger men…? They're just passers-by, you know? All of them on their way to some nice girl to get married and have children."

And the worse thing is that it actually gets his attention, and how he turns to her frowning, curious. "Then what's there for you?"

Shit. He's really gonna hate her now, but she won't lie to him: "Passers-by don't get to question."

Hotch raises his eyebrows. "Question…?"

Gillian flashes an apologetic grimace at what she's about to say: "That for me it'll always be my job and my son first," she mutters.

Hotch only nods and turns to look ahead again, then down at the floor right before his feet. He kills his scotch, using that last sip to stomach how right she is. Of course she's been here. And she's been strong and realistic enough to make the hard choice: accept that they can't expect anybody to understand the way they choose to live their lives.

At some point the reproaches always end up showing, because they cannot sit someone and explain over a coffee, or a drink, that this psychopath or this terrorist, and why they leave in a rush, no matter what they have to drop. Why they stay awake all night going through files, or why the horror they witness doesn't freeze them in shock, but compels them to keep going and try even harder.

And that's why she pushed him out his own door and sent them to have a good time for a few hours, and now fixed him the scotch and kept silent, after he stated he didn't wanted to talk about Beth breaking up with him.

Because she knows all of that. All. The reproaches, the absence, the rush, the thrill, the horror. The cold empty bed coming back home from a case, after tucking in and kissing a sleeping son. And one day she just said "enough", and took on the bitter truth and said to hell with whoever doesn't understand what it's like, being a crazy devoted workaholic, always obsessed with catching one more bad guy before he kills more people.

It's so clear now, so plain as her voice a minute ago. And he becomes so suddenly aware, still blankly staring down at the floor, that he says:

"You're not transferring to DC…"

And it's so important that he cannot even say it right, or at least give it the proper intonation.

Hotch hears Gillian move, and when he glances at her, she's not smiling as he's expecting, as he needs her too. She's curled up in her corner, her arms tight around her legs, shielding her chest, her heart. And in the dim light of the lamp behind her, Hotch can tell the tears in her clear blue eyes, as she steals them away from his and whispers:

"I… _I_ _can't_…," and then she tries a little tight smile and adds: "Hey, she's coming back, you know."

Hotch really wants to tell her, to yell at her: "No, she's not, and even if she does, it'd be useless. Cos I can't give her what she needs, so I'd only let her down again, just like I let Haley down so many times. Cos I'm just not the kind of man they need. And now I see they're not the kind of woman I need. Cos I've spent my whole life understanding everybody, and for no reason at all, now I'd like to feel like somebody gets one damned thing I'm saying."

But she knows that, too. And for some reason he can't even imagine, his words, even when he said exactly the opposite of what he really meant, scared her. And the last thing he wants is to scare her away. Because she does get what he says.

So he takes in a deep breath and stands up, and heads in no hurry to his room, before she can try to leave. She stays back there, curled up in the corner of the couch. And her voice reaches him almost at the door.

"Hotch…"

It's the first time she calls him that, and it makes it mean so much.

He halts and turns to her, finding her sad smile.

"Please, don't go too hard on yourself…"

That was not what she was supposed to say. And he just can't answer what he really wants —then help me not to. Because she's already trying, and he cannot blame her if this is all she can do right now.

So he slightly nods and goes on muttering: "Good night, Gillian."


	30. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 8-10

There's not much sleep for Hotch tonight. And it has actually nothing to do with Beth, since this was all so predictable. It has all to do, instead, with the woman curled up in his couch, not ten steps away from his bed, where he lies holding his son in the dark.

They've been so carefully avoiding each other ever since they met. And they've been so carefully hating each other when they had to share spaces. But there's always something that brings them together and smashes in their faces how much they care. A crazy bomber isolating them into a crumbling building for hours —actually killing Gillian, hadn't Hotch been there to give her CPR. Or a suicidal killer and Gillian's father, a combination that would change her life forever.

And he goes to the rescue. And she puts her life in his hands without a doubt. And they make it through.

She's no easy damsel in distress, he's got to give her that, with a little smile in the shadowy room. She's not caught by just any dragon. Only by dragons they can fight together.

Yet tonight it was her there for him. And all he's done is pushing and demanding, so much more than he's entitled to. So selfish. Just because Beth —tell me about lousy excuses. Knowing it's more than what she can give just now, out of the blue. Without the least consideration for what he just found out about her and her choices.

Just because he happened to realize, at that particular random moment of universal history, that she fits the type of woman he could actually be with, in order to spare himself such a waste of affection and energy on things that will never work. Actually she is the perfect definition of that type of woman.

She could be his workaholic next door, if she only transferred her to DC —leaving behind the city where she's lived her entire life, and her house, and her new promising post, and her team, and pretty much all of her life. Right away, honey, just let me grab my go-bag.

So he pushed her, cornered her, and then he made his dramatic exit —_good night, Gillian_… Gosh, what a pathetic selfish loser.

He's left her there all alone with her fears, and the burden of being aware of what just happened in mid-words and sideways looks. The burden of saying no to something he wasn't even able to properly ask.

And now he's here, in his own warm bed, holding his son. And she's right out there, away from her home and her son, alone. Because of him.

Congratulations, Hotchner, are you training to beat a record on how many people you can hurt in a single night?

Jack rolls to the side, away from him, and Hotch decides is time to man up and go back to the family-room. If anything, at least to try to have one of those smartass teasing chats she's an expert at.

He sneaks out of bed, slips into the first pants he finds, tiptoes out of his room, barefoot.

The lamp's still on in the family-room.

He shows at the doorway and finds Gillian's asleep on the couch. Her legs still curled up, she's lying on her side, head right beneath the lamp, glasses still on. And her face and her hand resting on his papers.

He's soon back with a light blanket and opens it, covering Gillian, careful not to wake her up. Then he picks her glasses with his fingertips and slowly removes them from her face. Her eyes flutter but stay closed. He lingers there for a moment, watching her sleep, her fingers touching those printed words he wrote so long ago.

No smile purses his lips now.

Bravo, Hotchner. You're late, for a change. You really are of no use but to catch sick bastards. Those you do understand and handle. 52 and normal human beings are a total mystery to you.

He's tempted to brush the hair off her face, but he turns the lamp off and goes back to his room, to his bed, to his son.


	31. Gillian Saga IV - The Date Act Four 9-10

Henry LaMontagne may be the cutest, funniest, sweetest, smartest kid on earth, but he has one terrible flaw: he's a _very_ _early_ morning person. He's the first to wake up next morning, and when he fails to wake up his god-father, he jumps out of bed and runs to the family-room.

There, the single-mom cop's radars set off the alarms as soon as his light feet paddle two steps, and Gillian catches him when he's trying to climb to the couch and sit astride on top of her. So Gillian hushes him, and they go to brush their teeth together, and then back to the family-room to fix some breakfast to the eager kid.

The single-dad serial-killer-hunter's radars soon detect movements around, and Hotch shows up at the family-room when Gillian's hardly put the kettle. He's already neatly dressed up for a while of soccer training before going to Quantico, every single thread of hair in place, and he sends Gillian to sit with Henry at the breakfast bar.

Gillian gladly surrenders the kitchen to the always spotless SSA and soon Jack is also joining them. When Reid finally shows up, in complete zombie walk mode, they all laugh at him and send him to wash his face and hurry up, because breakfast is ready and they're not waiting for him.

It's a relaxed moment, Henry sitting on Gillian's lap and Jack by her, Hotch bringing dishes and mugs for everybody, the kids chatting non-stop, Reid trying to actually wake up. And then the doorbell rings and Hotch teases, going to the door:

"Holster your gun, Gillian."

And Jennifer and Will join them, because it's been Henry's first night away from home and that's bigger that the unique chance to sleep in. So there comes Hotch with coffee for them, and they all chat and make jokes, and there goes the doorbell again and Rossi comes in.

He waves at everybody and calls: "Shuffle to the airport!"

And Gillian answers: "Me, me!"

And not a minute later they're waving goodbye and leaving, still laughing and joking with the others. And Hotch realizes he didn't have a chance to even invite her to a coffee in the park, to try to talk to her, to at least thank her.

But Jack is talking to him, and Henry wants more cereals, and it's just so Gone with the Wind: "I'll think of it all tomorrow…"

So she's gone, on her way to the airport and to Boston. To her home and her son and her lover, her team and her uptight boss, her everyday life, carefully built without the tinniest breach for him to even drop by and say hi. If he ever had the time to. That's how it's been since they first met, almost a year ago. That's them: apart.


	32. Gillian Saga IV -The Date Act Four 10-10

Rossi parks at an empty slot in the airport, kills the engine and turns to Gillian.

"You didn't need me to bring you here, Reg. What is it?"

Without a word, Gillian browses a picture in her phone and hands it to him.

Any hint of a smile disappears from Rossi's face when he sees the photo of a paper with the Eye of Providence and the word "over?" painted in blood.

"They received it last night, at the precinct where Shaunessy and O'Mara used to work," she says in a dull, low voice.

"And why did they send it to you? You're not even in the force anymore."

"Because I was a green-shot Homicides detective there back in 1998, when the Reaper first appeared. Shaunessy was sort of my mentor. And I lent a hand again in 2009, for his second spree, when you guys first caught him."

"Did you show this to Hotch?"

Gillian shakes her head, eyes down.

"No?"

"No." She faces Rossi with an impatient grimace. "Look, Dave, it's never a good moment to bring Foyet to Hotch's table, but last night it was definitely worse than usual. So I didn't."

"Why would you say that?"

Gillian gets started before she can even think about it, to Rossi's surprise.

"Because that stupid woman dumped him! And he was pretty messed up, so I wasn't going to wake him up in the middle of the night to show him this and salt his wounds!" She clicks her tongue, really pissed off. "Can you _believe_ it!? She came all the way from New York, to meet him for their Valentine's date _to dump him!_ Who does something like that!? Jeez! I think I'm going to New York just to punch that woman's lights out!"

Rossi allows Gillian to vent out with a little smile. And as she goes, he takes a moment to think how strange it is, Gillian's love for Hotch. She's genuinely outraged at Beth for hurting him, but it hasn't even crossed her mind that now he's no longer committed to anybody, that can play for her. She's just mad at the fact of him being harmed.

It's fear, Rossi realizes. That's why she would never see this as a chance to be with Hotch: Regan Daredevil Gillian is head over heels crazy in love with the only man on earth she doesn't dare to have.

"Ok, take it easy. No need to punch anybody's lights out."

Gillian snorts looking out. Rossi gives her back her phone.

"Hotch needs to know about this, Reg."

"No, actually he doesn't. Nothing happened this far but a piece of paper. And we're not upsetting him over some brainless bastard, who's read Colson's book and thought this would be a funny prank."

"Then why are you showing me this?"

Gillian grimaces again, thinking about Banks, her old partner, and Taylor, her lover and Bank's current partner. She's going to see them straight from the airport, they must be pretty upset —to send her that picture at 2 am, they sure are.

"Because if this ever escalates into an actual murder, I'd like to help my friends in the force to catch this scumbag."

"And to do so, you'd like to know you can turn to us…"

"To you, Dave, not the whole team. I was there when you guys delivered Foyet's profile back in 2009. And it was Hotch and you. So nobody else needs to know. I worked with both Shaunessy and O'Mara, so this is sort of personal for me too."

"You're asking me not to tell Hotch about it."

She looks straight into his eyes to say: "I'm asking you to look after him, Dave. To _protect_ him."

Rossi nods grimacing. He may not agree about keeping this from Hotch, but she's right about shielding him from things that may upset him and stress him for nothing. His hands are already full. And that's also why she's confiding this on him: both of them know that Rossi is the only one Hotch would accept a piece of advice from, now and then.

Gillian puts on her sunglasses and opens the door. "Gotta go now, Dave. Planes to catch…"

"Direct flight, DC to Boston. No stops in New York."

"C'mon, I didn't really mean it!"

"Of course not. Take care, Reg."

She meets his eyes and they smile, she kisses his check. "Thanks, Dave."

Gillian steps out of the car, retrieves her bag from the trunk and walks away. Rossi lingers there, watching her go with a sigh.


End file.
